Blue Bombers - 2023 Regular Season - Discussion Thread

[wbbfan]

5 minutes ago, Booch said:

you have to remember...Gauthier...Lawrence....Clements...Haba....all did full stints, and save for Haba the other 3 were not on entry level deals...

when all said and done we will have likely 500 to 600k approx that was supposed to be for this yr go toward upfront money for 2024...we should be just fine with re-upping the guys who will need a nice bump

Plus....we likely had NFL returnee money allocated as well for a possible pick-up that will likely go un-used as I don't see us going that route this yr...unless something really intriguing comes our way....Walters always allocates an amount each yr for that...

yeah...Like i say....we will have about 500 to 600k saved on 6 gamer money...thats a huge amount to re-sign key guys that won't go against the 2024 SMS...allowing us to then resign some key vets who won't be getting a big boost for 2024....and or a potential FA target.

And highly likely we will be shedding some of of our vet contracts in Thomas...Briggs....I bet Miller...Pretty sure one of Neuf/Gray....Lawrence....Darby...so with 2025 cup in our house you may see a lot of 2 yr deals coming up as well 

Yep agree. 

This off season will be the success indicator for the team going forward the next few years. We will have to move to younger guys and make the next Willy, biggie type of addition to remain competitive and focus on restocking our nis cupboard. And not with just sts guys. 

[Arnold_Palmer]

9 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

Yep agree. 

This off season will be the success indicator for the team going forward the next few years. We will have to move to younger guys and make the next Willy, biggie type of addition to remain competitive and focus on restocking our nis cupboard. And not with just sts guys. 

Walters has done a masterful job over the years with the cap, something he really doesn’t get enough credit for. 

[Booch]

yeah we need more a move toward some the ST guys being of the ilk that they could start...like legitimate start quality...not this reward system, and mindset that all the guys are #1's....yeah sure looks good in sound bites, and in the paper, but it is hardly accurate

I can see WJ still being a big part of 2025....mayyybe Jeffcoat if he stays healthy, and why not when guys like Lemon...M. Johnson, Laurent, Hughes were still impactful in the 34 to 36 age range, but the successors need to be in-house now....next yr at latest getting reps and developing...Haba from the first looks we got seems legit, and a free agent pick up could also be part of it... (Kongbo and Bennett) for the ratio aspect

Biggie I can see possibly only around  as a part time role player, and leader...not the starter, and likely at a reduced salary too....but his presence on ST and as a bit player will be invaluable in a Grey Cup Run, but in 2025 he will be turning 37 so he could be phased out that yr

Edited September 14, 2023 by Booch

[TBURGESS]

You can't take players salaries, divide them by the number of games, and apply that to our savings. You have to subtract the bonuses first. 

Lawler for example got a $125K signing bonus so his absence saved the team about $42K. - https://3downnation.com/2023/07/20/winnipeg-blue-bombers-flex-late-on-winless-edmonton-elks-12-other-thoughts/#:~:text=It should be noted that,for each regular season game.  

[Bigblue204]

1 minute ago, Booch said:

I can see WJ still being a *** part of 2025....mayyybe Jeffcoat if he stays healthy, and why not when guys like Lemon...M. Johnson, Laurent, Hughes were still impactful in the 34 to 36 age range, but the successors need to be in-house now....next yr at latest getting reps and developing...Haba from the first looks we got seems legit, and a free agent pick up could also be part of it... (Kongbo and Bennett) for the ratio aspect

Off topic...but why did (what I'm assuming is...) big get starred out in that first sentence? lol

[wbbfan]

5 minutes ago, Arnold_Palmer said:

Walters has done a masterful job over the years with the cap, something he really doesn’t get enough credit for. 

100%. And bringing in the best talent with what’s available. 
 

[Booch]

43 minutes ago, Bigblue204 said:

Off topic...but why did (what I'm assuming is...) big get starred out in that first sentence? lol

yeah I know...I edited i and excepted it this time...I guess big Willie was just too much for the censors hahaa

44 minutes ago, TBURGESS said:

You can't take players salaries, divide them by the number of games, and apply that to our savings. You have to subtract the bonuses first. 

Lawler for example got a $125K signing bonus so his absence saved the team about $42K. - https://3downnation.com/2023/07/20/winnipeg-blue-bombers-flex-late-on-winless-edmonton-elks-12-other-thoughts/#:~:text=It should be noted that,for each regular season game.  

most guys mentioned if at all other than Lawler got next to nothing upfront...or if did was minimal...and that 42k will basically be nice up front money for BO toward 2024 but paid in 2023

[GCn20]

1 hour ago, wbbfan said:

Miller and Hansen aren’t earning 60k. Lawler is on a 2 year deal, his bonus is split. We always have 6 games of ir savings from jj. 
 Again that also doesn’t include any of the other guys. 

Miller is 95k, no4 in FBs pay. 
rose is 125k 

grant is 111k 

hansen 80k

even if Darby is at 80, and I have no doubt he’s over 90k, that’s an average of 98,200 per guy. At 90k it’s a good 100k per. 
 

Now add in kyrie gauthier clements Lawrence and beeksma. That’ll very conservatively be another 100k. 

 

Miller is over 100k according to 3DN. Rose might be 125k but he only missed 6 games that count against the SMS. That 1/3 his salary IF and this is a big IF he didn't get a single dollar up front. Grant may do 2/3 but we don't know yet. Hansen 80k. 

The problem I have with all of this is that you guys have given zero consideration to the cost of replacement for each roster player that we 6 game IR. Cap savings, and I will type this as slowly as I can because it seems to be lost on people, are the players salary minus the cost of replacement for players on the roster. 

If Miller loses the entire season at 100k, we do not have 100k in open cap space because of it. We have 100k - the cost of replacing him in the lineup. If we replace with someone on a rookie minimum deal the cost of replacement is 72k. That makes his entire stint on 6 game for the year a cap savings of 28k, The only time you get massive savings on the 6 game is when your stars go down, guys who make far more money than the cost of replacement. Haba, Gauthier, Clements, Lawrence, Beeksma, Hansen all represent little to no savings on the SMS to us because we MUST fill their roster or PR spots while they are injured. 

There is no 600k unicorn savings...that CAN'T happen under any scenario this year without half our team missing the rest of the season on the 6 game. Even 400k is a far fetched number. It's not happening. You guys need to understand that you can't just play short or roster short when a guy goes down. When someone goes down someone else goes in, and they get paid game cheques that count against the SMS and eat up a lot of the savings.

We will be lucky, or unlucky depending on how you look at it, to have 275k in SMS savings from our injured players for the entire year. 

Edited September 14, 2023 by GCn20

[GCn20]

54 minutes ago, TBURGESS said:

You can't take players salaries, divide them by the number of games, and apply that to our savings. You have to subtract the bonuses first. 

Lawler for example got a $125K signing bonus so his absence saved the team about $42K. - https://3downnation.com/2023/07/20/winnipeg-blue-bombers-flex-late-on-winless-edmonton-elks-12-other-thoughts/#:~:text=It should be noted that,for each regular season game.  

You also have to factor in the game cheques earned by his replacement and subtract that off the pro rated amount. So 42k in savings minus Agudosi's game cheques that he wouldn't have gotten otherwise. At league minimum that is 4k a game for 5 games so 20k. The savings for Lawler on the SMS are in fact 22k after cost of replacement. There is no way Agudosi or any other Bomber is earning league min on our PR....maybe RIchmond...that would be the only guy because he is the heir apparent to Bryant. Everyone else is making diddly on the PR.

[wbbfan]

11 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

Miller is over 100k according to 3DN. Rose might be 125k but he only missed 6 games that count against the SMS. That 1/3 his salary IF and this is a big IF he didn't get a single dollar up front. Grant may do 2/3 but we don't know yet. Hansen 80k. 

The problem I have with all of this is that you guys have given zero consideration to the cost of replacement for each roster player that we 6 game IR. Cap savings, and I will type this as slowly as I can because it seems to be lost on people, are the players salary minus the cost of replacement for players on the roster. 

If Miller loses the entire season at 100k, we do not have 100k in open cap space because of it. We have 100k - the cost of replacing him in the lineup. If we replace with someone on a rookie minimum deal the cost of replacement is 72k. That makes his entire stint on 6 game for the year a cap savings of 28k, The only time you get massive savings on the 6 game is when your stars go down, guys who make far more money than the cost of replacement. Haba, Gauthier, Clements, Lawrence, Beeksma, Hansen all represent little to no savings on the SMS to us because we MUST fill their roster or PR spots while they are injured. 

There is no 600k unicorn savings...that CAN'T happen under any scenario this year without half our team missing the rest of the season on the 6 game. Even 400k is a far fetched number. It's not happening. You guys need to understand that you can't just play short or roster short when a guy goes down. When someone goes down someone else goes in, and they get paid game cheques that count against the SMS and eat up a lot of the savings.

You’re miss understanding the nature of the 6 game. When a player is on it, that salary still counts. So including the replacement, we are still under the cap. Then after 6 weeks we get that cap hit back. Each team allots a portion of the cap to off set injuries. It’s not player comes off our roster salary comes off our books new players salary goes on the books. We stay under the cap including injury replacement players, and the injured player. It’s not like the nba where teams are crushed up against the cap. We also leave extra room every year for nfl cuts. 

The salary cap right now is 5.45m. Realistically, we likely spend 5.15m range and keep the rest on hand. Walters always has done this. You also have to pay for the pr expansion guys. 
 

what you are also missing gcn20 is that we aren’t replacing most guys with vet imps. We’ve dressed an extra global a few times, and frequently filled vet imp spots with rookie contract and second deal nis. We’ve started an extra ni or rostered an extra global in almost all our games. And we’ve also not been abusing the nat imp rule filling out another spot with a min guy. 

[Booch]

25 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

Miller is over 100k according to 3DN. Rose might be 125k but he only missed 6 games that count against the SMS. That 1/3 his salary IF and this is a big IF he didn't get a single dollar up front. Grant may do 2/3 but we don't know yet. Hansen 80k. 

The problem I have with all of this is that you guys have given zero consideration to the cost of replacement for each roster player that we 6 game IR. Cap savings, and I will type this as slowly as I can because it seems to be lost on people, are the players salary minus the cost of replacement for players on the roster. 

If Miller loses the entire season at 100k, we do not have 100k in open cap space because of it. We have 100k - the cost of replacing him in the lineup. If we replace with someone on a rookie minimum deal the cost of replacement is 72k. That makes his entire stint on 6 game for the year a cap savings of 28k, The only time you get massive savings on the 6 game is when your stars go down, guys who make far more money than the cost of replacement. Haba, Gauthier, Clements, Lawrence, Beeksma, Hansen all represent little to no savings on the SMS to us because we MUST fill their roster or PR spots while they are injured. 

There is no 600k unicorn savings...that CAN'T happen under any scenario this year without half our team missing the rest of the season on the 6 game. Even 400k is a far fetched number. It's not happening. You guys need to understand that you can't just play short or roster short when a guy goes down. When someone goes down someone else goes in, and they get paid game cheques that count against the SMS and eat up a lot of the savings.

We will be lucky, or unlucky depending on how you look at it, to have 275k in SMS savings from our injured players for the entire year. 

when you work your SMS you allocate the whole salaries if all bonuses and hard money is met, and also you allocate certain amount for injuries....etc....so it's actually not a matter of that coming out of savings on the 6 game...thats not how it works....GM's have pools of money in 3 piles to make it simple that they divy up prior to making roster...and those piles will fluctuate as they build and the actual hard numbers become realized....so essentially yes it's a lot of pure surplus....my understanding, and recall is that the smart gm's will allocate between 4-7 entry level deal portions of money...pro-rated to varying degrees for injury management

[BBlink]

The fact that we've run so many weeks without many on the 1 game would also signify cap savings right? 

Like if we had to put one of our veterans on 1 game then we are paying someone else full salary to take their spot and still putting that vet's salary on the books.

I just think in general because we've been relatively injury free that it has to be good for our salary cap.

[Booch]

7 minutes ago, BBlink said:

The fact that we've run so many weeks without many on the 1 game would also signify cap savings right? 

Like if we had to put one of our veterans on 1 game then we are paying someone else full salary to take their spot and still putting that vet's salary on the books.

I just think in general because we've been relatively injury free that it has to be good for our salary cap.

yes.....saving there as well, as you ae not having to account for 2 salaries for 1 position on the roster

[wbbfan]

15 minutes ago, BBlink said:

The fact that we've run so many weeks without many on the 1 game would also signify cap savings right? 

Like if we had to put one of our veterans on 1 game then we are paying someone else full salary to take their spot and still putting that vet's salary on the books.

I just think in general because we've been relatively injury free that it has to be good for our salary cap.

We can retroactively change guys from 1 game to 6 game and take them off 6 game so in reality the 1 or 6 game doesn’t differ much any more.

As I see us using it guys who are day to day and miss a game go to 1 game ir. Vets who get scratched and aren’t playing a following week go to 6. Pretty much every one else also goes to 6. Also we some times seem to leave guys on 1 game for a few weeks maybe to keep guys preparing for the possibility they play. 

[GCn20]

23 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

We can retroactively change guys from 1 game to 6 game and take them off 6 game so in reality the 1 or 6 game doesn’t differ much any more.

As I see us using it guys who are day to day and miss a game go to 1 game ir. Vets who get scratched and aren’t playing a following week go to 6. Pretty much every one else also goes to 6. Also we some times seem to leave guys on 1 game for a few weeks maybe to keep guys preparing for the possibility they play. 

You CANNOT retroactively move a guy from 1 game to 6 game IR. Different rules of what you are allowed to do for each.  You can remove one guy early each half of the season from the 6 game without the SMS hit. The rest have to stay on the full 6 game to get the savings.

35 minutes ago, Booch said:

yes.....saving there as well, as you ae not having to account for 2 salaries for 1 position on the roster

Exactly right, Whereas, the 6 game allows (IF the player does the full stint) means that one of those players are wiped off the books but the other still counts on the SMS.

Edited September 14, 2023 by GCn20

[GCn20]

1 hour ago, wbbfan said:

You’re miss understanding the nature of the 6 game. When a player is on it, that salary still counts. So including the replacement, we are still under the cap. Then after 6 weeks we get that cap hit back. Each team allots a portion of the cap to off set injuries. It’s not player comes off our roster salary comes off our books new players salary goes on the books. We stay under the cap including injury replacement players, and the injured player. It’s not like the nba where teams are crushed up against the cap. We also leave extra room every year for nfl cuts. 

The salary cap right now is 5.45m. Realistically, we likely spend 5.15m range and keep the rest on hand. Walters always has done this. You also have to pay for the pr expansion guys. 
 

what you are also missing gcn20 is that we aren’t replacing most guys with vet imps. We’ve dressed an extra global a few times, and frequently filled vet imp spots with rookie contract and second deal nis. We’ve started an extra ni or rostered an extra global in almost all our games. And we’ve also not been abusing the nat imp rule filling out another spot with a min guy. 

At no point did I ever suggest we were replacing vets with vets, my calculations are actually based on replacement at league minimum salary. I am not misunderstanding anything. Anytime a guy goes off the 46, a new guy comes on and earns a game cheque that wouldn't have got one otherwise. That is absolutely 100% fact. Those game cheques must be included in the SMS. Do we leave money for that? Of course. Was that the discussion? Nope. You cannot realize savings from money already set aside unless you don't use it. When guys go to the 6 game those funds allocated for it shrink accordingly. Therefore, it is SMS 101. Savings from the 6 game minus the cost of replacement. It is absolutely 100% the way the SMS works. I missed nothing. You are missing the math.

[Jesse]

1 hour ago, wbbfan said:

You’re miss understanding the nature of the 6 game. When a player is on it, that salary still counts. So including the replacement, we are still under the cap. Then after 6 weeks we get that cap hit back. Each team allots a portion of the cap to off set injuries. It’s not player comes off our roster salary comes off our books new players salary goes on the books. We stay under the cap including injury replacement players, and the injured player. It’s not like the nba where teams are crushed up against the cap. We also leave extra room every year for nfl cuts. 

The salary cap right now is 5.45m. Realistically, we likely spend 5.15m range and keep the rest on hand. Walters always has done this. You also have to pay for the pr expansion guys. 
 

what you are also missing gcn20 is that we aren’t replacing most guys with vet imps. We’ve dressed an extra global a few times, and frequently filled vet imp spots with rookie contract and second deal nis. We’ve started an extra ni or rostered an extra global in almost all our games. And we’ve also not been abusing the nat imp rule filling out another spot with a min guy. 

You're making up/assuming a whole bunch of things here.

We went over the cap last year, so it's fair to say we're close to the cap. We certainly have no idea how much is allocated for injuries, so you can't pretend it's there to add to these "savings" we'll have available at the end of the year.

As for the not replacing guys with vets, that dosn;t matter. If a guy making 100k (who received zero bonus money) is 6-gamed. That takes 33k of the cap right? The league minimum is 70k now? That means we're paying a league min. 23k for those 6 games for a saving of 10k off the cap. If this player had any up front cash at all, that might take away the savings or even end up costing us more.

And what about the one-game?

There is no cap saving there, right? So any time a player goes on the one-game, we're just handing out two game cheques for the player AND his replacement. 

[Booch]

9 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

At no point did I ever suggest we were replacing vets with vets, my calculations are actually based on replacement at league minimum salary. I am not misunderstanding anything. Anytime a guy goes off the 46, a new guy comes on and earns a game cheque that wouldn't have got one otherwise. That is absolutely 100% fact. Those game cheques must be included in the SMS. Do we leave money for that? Of course. Was that the discussion? Nope. You cannot realize savings from money already set aside unless you don't use it. When guys go to the 6 game those funds allocated for it shrink accordingly. Therefore, it is SMS 101. Savings from the 6 game minus the cost of replacement. It is absolutely 100% the way the SMS works. I missed nothing. You are missing the math.

not always actually...and often rarely...Like I mentioned teams will have a allotment of monies set aside and accounted for in the over all SMS for the yr for injury replacements, and roster additions, that isn't coming from the allotted total money for the presumed 46 man roster....if it gets real bad injury wise then yes some will come from that savings, but for the most part they have that covered to an extent, because if they didn't they would be in cap hell in some scenarios

Fairly certain when all said and done we will have about 500k at least to put toward 2024 contracts

[GCn20]

9 minutes ago, Jesse said:

You're making up/assuming a whole bunch of things here.

We went over the cap last year, so it's fair to say we're close to the cap. We certainly have no idea how much is allocated for injuries, so you can't pretend it's there to add to these "savings" we'll have available at the end of the year.

As for the not replacing guys with vets, that dosn;t matter. If a guy making 100k (who received zero bonus money) is 6-gamed. That takes 33k of the cap right? The league minimum is 70k now? That means we're paying a league min. 23k for those 6 games for a saving of 10k off the cap. If this player had any up front cash at all, that might take away the savings or even end up costing us more.

And what about the one-game?

There is no cap saving there, right? So any time a player goes on the one-game, we're just handing out two game cheques for the player AND his replacement. 

For sure. 100% correct. It's very simple math really. It would take injury levels never seen before, or Collaros to spend half the season on it, to reach 600k in SMS savings through the 6 game. 

3 minutes ago, Booch said:

not always actually...and often rarely...Like I mentioned teams will have a allotment of monies set aside and accounted for in the over all SMS for the yr for injury replacements, and roster additions, that isn't coming from the allotted total money for the presumed 46 man roster....if it gets real bad injury wise then yes some will come from that savings, but for the most part they have that covered to an extent, because if they didn't they would be in cap hell in some scenarios

Fairly certain when all said and done we will have about 500k at least to put toward 2024 contracts

Sure, I completely accept that Walters has likely budgeted for some of this year's cap to be spent on next year. That is NOT what the discussion was.

Edited September 14, 2023 by GCn20

[Booch]

2 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

For sure. 100% correct. It's very simple math really. It would take injury levels never seen before, or Collaros to spend half the season on it, to reach 600k in SMS savings through the 6 game. 

Sure, I wouldn't doubt that number. But only a % of that is coming from 6 game cap savings.

yeah...hard to say and a lot of speculations...with who got what....gets what....what we stashed..etc....but as a cap management aspect thats generally what the smart GM's do with allotment of the money....none the less tho...we will have a nice lil kitty available for re-ups/extensions going into 2024/25 which will greatly help the 2024 SMS

[wbbfan]

25 minutes ago, Jesse said:

You're making up/assuming a whole bunch of things here.

We went over the cap last year, so it's fair to say we're close to the cap. We certainly have no idea how much is allocated for injuries, so you can't pretend it's there to add to these "savings" we'll have available at the end of the year.

As for the not replacing guys with vets, that dosn;t matter. If a guy making 100k (who received zero bonus money) is 6-gamed. That takes 33k of the cap right? The league minimum is 70k now? That means we're paying a league min. 23k for those 6 games for a saving of 10k off the cap. If this player had any up front cash at all, that might take away the savings or even end up costing us more.

And what about the one-game?

There is no cap saving there, right? So any time a player goes on the one-game, we're just handing out two game cheques for the player AND his replacement. 

If you go back and watch any of the yearly off season summary videos from walters you’ll see this reiterated in every one. 
we went over the cap with the mid season moves, that’s why our over all amount over was low. 
Again that’s budgeted for. No team is spending to the cap at the start of the year. 
 

the one game is relatively meaningless as I said in another post. With the ability to retroactively swap 1 game to 6 game and remove guys early from 6 game. But yes if a guy misses less than 6 we don’t get savings. 

[wbbfan]

22 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

For sure. 100% correct. It's very simple math really. It would take injury levels never seen before, or Collaros to spend half the season on it, to reach 600k in SMS savings through the 6 game. 

Sure, I completely accept that Walters has likely budgeted for some of this year's cap to be spent on next year. That is NOT what the discussion was.

The money for replacements comes out of that, not the rest which creates a net surplus. As well as what we allot for guys who might come back from the nfl, under spending on injury replacements, un spent bonus cap, 6 game repay, etc all rolls into cap surplus when you get close to the deadline you take that whole sum and turn it into excess used to front load money to reduce future cap hits. 

If teams did not put aside a good 400k to pay replacements out of, any team with a starting qb that goes down for the season would go over the cap before the 6 game period and lose a first round pick. So you can guarantee that the sum allotted for replacement injury players is your starting qb and probably close or your second highest paid player. 
Other wise you would lose a first if you lost your top two players to injury long before week 5. Like Ottawa last year. Or bc the last few years where they lost big fa addition defensive guys. 

[JuranBoldenRules]

The CFL SMS is purely an addition problem.  There’s no offsets or LTIR allowances.  At the end of the year they add the salaries and bonuses paid for each game.  Active roster and 1 game.

[WinnipegGordo]

7 minutes ago, JuranBoldenRules said:

The CFL SMS is purely an addition problem.  There’s no offsets or LTIR allowances.  At the end of the year they add the salaries and bonuses paid for each game.  Active roster and 1 game.

And practice roster and any bonuses paid out.

[M.O.A.B.]

So many math. My brain hurts. 🤢